I've Lost Two Uncles and One Isn't Physically Dead

I no longer have an uncle but he’s not dead yet

He may as well be though. He’s a first class asswipe, and that’s being kind. There are no words that would accurately describe him or his behavior. His actions have shown us that he wants no part of our family, and so be it. It sucks that this is all coming to pass around the holidays but what are you going to do?
I don’t even know where to start. He’s my dad’s older brother, the oldest of 3 boys. Dad is the middle one and there’s a younger brother who’s an alcoholic. By some miracle, my dad is the only nice one. The one with a heart but also one who will beat your ass if needed. He’s a good guy, but he can be an asshole too.
Anyway, Uncle Joe was the golden child. According to Nana, he could do no wrong, even if he did. Every little thing was covered up or never talked about. Joe could do no wrong. (I’m using his real name because I don’t care if he reads this or not. It doesn’t matter anymore.) He was an altar boy and there was an incident. (Not with the priest but with other, younger boys.) That was all hush-hush and has never been talked about until recently.
When my grandmother died, being the eldest, he got the estate, as Nana didn’t have a will. My grandfather had died years earlier, before I was born. Dad didn’t want to create problems and decided not to fight for his share. He should have because things might be so very different today. Joe was selfish and didn’t even offer anything. Gerard wasn’t going to do anything because he was barely functioning through the alcohol. So Joe got a house, a car, the contents of the house, and a decent amount of money. The house was paid for too. At the time, Joe had a pretty decent job and was making lots of money. He traveled a lot, mostly to Amsterdam, and was actually fairly generous to us kids. But there was always tension between him and my dad.
He never married, and we’re pretty sure we know why, but he’s never stepped out of the closet to us. All the signs are there, mostly male friends, never a girlfriend to speak of, lots of AIDS memorials, stuff like that. We never really cared either way and let him know that, but he never said anything. Maybe it’s because he sensed we never really liked him as a person and thought oh they hate gays or something. Whatever it was, we know, and I think he knows we know, but nothing has ever been said.
He’s always had an assholish personality. I don’t know how to describe it, but he’s arrogant and snobbish. He’s the kind of guy who would do just about anything to benefit himself, no matter who or what it hurt.
Things took a turn for the worse somewhere in the late 90s for him. We don’t know what really happened, but he did work for a bank that went under. He got another job after that but lost it around ’98 or so, and took to fraud. It was obvious he wasn’t doing as well, because he still had the same car that he had 20 years ago. The gifts to us kids had definitely diminished, and his clothes had gotten much shabbier. (Went from all sorts of gourmet stuff, really cool clothes, to maybe a card.) He had always been a sharp dresser, immaculate, lots of cologne, designer clothes. He started wearing lots of tracksuits and cheaper clothes. He never offered any information and never answered if we asked. He didn’t seem to care.
So that happened. Then my great uncle, Louis, had a stroke. Joe ended up taking care of him and taking over his things. This was the good side to him, as Louis always liked Joe, but there was another motive. Louis was loaded. He had had a good job, with a great pension, and lived like a miser. I’m talking re-using the coffee grounds 4-5 times at least. He was fond of dumpster diving. Yet he was always generous. Us kids called him Uncle Moneybags, because he would always leave us with a $10 or $20 after each visit. Before his stroke, he gave my parents $20,000 for our education. He was that kind of guy. He cared about his family and wanted to make sure we did ok. He was never the same after his stroke.
Joe got power of attorney when Louis started really losing his facilities. That meant he had control over his pension and everything else that came with it. That becomes importat. We wanted to do more, but at the time my family was dealing with the death of my mom’s mother and the subsequent move of my Aunt to live with us. So it fell to Joe to do this, and he did. Louis had 2 sisters, but they were elderly and couldn’t do as much. They tried though.
Joe somehow managed to go through most of Louis’ money quite quickly, well before he was put in the expensive Assisted living place that Louis HATED. It wasn’t his style. But Joe insisted because he wanted to show how much he cared, even though Louis really wasn’t thrilled.
Thanksgiving 2003 was the turning point. Joe hadn’t been in a whole lot of contact with anyone, except to drop a bomb saying that he was selling the house, the house my dad grew up in, the house that still contained all of my grandparents’ things. He said he had to sell the house. Words were said, and we weren’t sure if he was going to show up for Thanksgiving dinner, but he did. Never could pass up a free meal. Things were still tense and Dad really wanted to hurt uncle Joe, but for the sake of peace, nothing was done. The boy and I were actually there for once. We had managed to scrape together money for plane tickets, so the boy got the introduction to Joe.
During dinner, Joe casually mentioned the fact that he was going to be moving soon. The house had sold, and if we wanted anything from it, we needed to do it soon, as he didn’t know how long he would be there. (The new owners were letting him stay indefinitely or something.) We were shocked to say the least, and scrambled to figure out how we were going to do this. The boy and I scrapped our plans to do Boston the day after Thanksgiving to help deal with all of this.
So we went over to the house to see what we could save. Oh I could have cried. The house that my Nana had kept so pretty, so clean, was in disrepair. Nana must have turned so many times in her grave that she must have been dizzy. Oh it was bad. The lawn was overgrown, the paint was chipped and faded, the roof needed repair, and oh the backyard. That was just the outside. The inside was dark and dank and musty. It was disgusting. Things were everywhere. Nothing was organized. It was all just there.
We dug in and cleaned and sorted and just went through everything. We managed to save Nana’s hope chest with her wedding dress and other things. We packed up dozens of glasses and antiques. We threw out even more. It took all day Friday and we came back Saturday for more. We were glad that my dad had to work those days because it would have killed him to see the house that way. We had free reign of the house so I did some digging around in some paperwork that I found. Turned out Joe had re-mortgaged the house and had not made payments in a long time. The house had been foreclosed upon. (I later looked it up on a deed site and it was indeed true.) That hurt more than anything. He could have asked. My parents would have helped. Other relatives would have helped, and what had happened with Louis’ money? We all could have saved the house. It was a nice house, a good neighborhood. It didn’t have to end up this way.
While Googling for the information, I also found that Joe had been convicted of credit card and insurance fraud some years before. That wasn’t exactly a shock and it would explain a lot of things.
We didn’t really have much contact with him for a while. He came to KidBro’s college graduation but that was it. He attended holiday dinners and the like but not much else. Relations were strained to say the least.
Then Louis got worse a few weeks ago. He had another massive stroke and got sicker. He had internal bleeding and brain damage. It was bad. Joe kept him alive as long as he could, doing all sorts of things, even when the doctors were saying it wasn’t really worth it. Louis wouldn’t have wanted it, he would have been the first person to tell you to shoot him. But Joe kept him alive, more we think for the checks than anything, and some to just show the world that he pretended to care when if he really did, he would have let him go.
Louis died on Monday. Joe called my dad to tell him the news, and then asked my dad to pay for the funeral. You see, Joe had no money for it. He never saved any of Louis’ money to pay for it and there was nothing. We’re not sure about Life Insurance but we think he may have scammed his way into something there, cashed it, and run through the money. Mom and Dad are NOT happy about this.
Two days pass and they have heard nothing further on the matter. Nothing about a funeral or even anything. No one can get a hold of Joe. Dad calls Aunt Lucy, Louis’ sister, to see if she knows anything. Turns out she didn’t even know that Louis had died. Dad ended up breaking the news. Apparently Joe felt that my parents should be doing it all, even though he had been Louis’ primary caretaker and next of kin for year now. Lucy was upset and furious but also not shocked. Joe’s behavior is no family secret. Dad made a few calls and it turns out that Louis’ body still has not been claimed from the hospital. It’s been 2 days mind you, and there’s only been a phone call from Joe asking my parents to pay for the funeral and they didn’t say yes.
Lucy, Louis’ sister, whom Joe had driven to the hospital only days before mind you, is saying let it be. Let Joe deal with the consequences on this one. Louis doesn’t really deserve this but Joe does. My parents are furious. Dad is ready to find Joe and pummel him. This is the last straw. But wait, there’s more. Oh is there ever more.
It turns out that Joe did move soon after the house clean out. He just never told anyone but Lucy. We didn’t know. Mom has been sending cards and things to the old address for 3 years now. He moved 3 YEARS AGO and didn’t tell us. He still visited and had dinners and things with the family, attended my brother’s graduation, did all sorts of things, but never mentioned a change of address. He did take the phone number with him, a phone number that is still in his father’s name, the father who died 32 years ago. That makes me think that he may still be using his fathers SS# and other things to obtain other stuff.
KidBro Googled Joe again and came up with some new information on him. Turns out that Joe is currently on probation for insurance fraud and kiting checks, plus he has been charged with doing it again. He apparently wrote checks for his car insurance in 2004 from a bank that has been closed since 1992. What a good person he is. Dad is thinking about talking to buddies of his that still work at the prison (Dad is a retired corrections officer) and having them run Joe’s name in the system. If he is on probation, the probation officer will be alerted to the fact that someone ran his name. That’s enough to raise red flags and get him in a bit of hot water. Plus it would make his PO contact him, and since no one can seem to contact him right now… hmmm.
I spent an hour talking this over with my dad last night. He needed to blow off some steam and since I understand him, we cursed Joe over the phone last night. He regrets not doing things differently, not demanding his respect. We always let things be, in order to keep the peace. We shouldn’t have. Like everyone else in the family, I warned my dad not to do anything stupid since he was so pissed off. Dad can get hotheaded and all, and knows people and ways to um, do things. You don’t piss Dad off. We have all put a familial restraining order on Dad to not be alone with Joe for a while, but Dad has realized that he’s just not worth it anymore.
We’ll see how things develop. I’m sure I’ll have updates soon. Joe just sucks, but he isn’t going to be a part of this family anymore. He no longer has the right.